


we all fell down

by magicinourfingertips



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Heartbreak, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Magical Flower People, Minor Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Not Beta Read, Park Seonghwa is Whipped, Park Seonghwa-centric, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Sad with a Happy Ending, Soft Choi San, Unrequited Love, When you die with an open wound flowers bloom in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:47:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25816798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicinourfingertips/pseuds/magicinourfingertips
Summary: This is based on an art piece by yangsketch on twitter!Click here to see!Thank you to the artist for letting me 'borrow' the art for some highkey needed angst time. I enjoyed speedwriting this piece with all of my depressive thoughts that were generated in this week. I got to re-explore satire in my special one shot style, which was also fun!Edit (Aug 10th): Some of the dialogue from the original file wasn't transferred so I took the liberty of editing it.I hope you all read the tags- if you haven't, please check it out. Have a great time reading!
Relationships: Implied Sanhwa, Kang Yeosang/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	we all fell down

Sometimes, he couldn't believe that he was given another chance to live. 

It had been almost a decade since daisies bloomed in his chest, his lungs caged in the aftermath. 

Almost a decade since Yeosang left him for dead.

Every day, he’d wake up in his little hut and trek down to his flower garden, to tend to the little flowers growing in the pots and planters. There were many types of flowers in his garden, such as carnations, marigold lilies and irises..

But no roses. 

(He didn’t need a reminder of what he had lost.)

Nobody in town knew where he came from, how old he was or what his name was. Seonghwa preferred to keep it that way. It was easier to blend in when nobody knew of him as the legend.

San was a special friend. The young man worked as a baker and frequently wandered into his garden on his off days to ‘visit’ the older, freshly made pastries and jam tucked into a delicately woven basket. San talked every time they met, often bringing stories and gossip of the local town into his secluded humble abode.

Seonghwa doubted that the young man knew that he was sent to be his guardian angel.

He didn’t want him to.

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

_The golden sun shone down on them in the field of sunflowers. Seonghwa, in his petite white dress, stared down at his lover as they dug out something from their pocket._

_“I know I’ve been harsh on you, asking you to enlist and everything for the sake of our kingdom. I’m sorry to have put you in such a difficult place, beloved,” Yeosang spoke as he stared back at him with hearts in his eyes._

_“Promise me you’ll wait for me, Park Seonghwa. When this war ends, I’ll meet you on the white altar.”_

_He once again sucked in a breath as Yeosang knelt down, a golden band entwined with a crown of daisies in his hand. Yeosang was as beautiful as ever in his princely robes, his trusty rapier at his side. He awaited an answer with a bated breath, as if he took a breath Seonghwa would disappear._

_The tears fell down before he knew it._

_“Yes! A million times yes!”_

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

The first person he saw when he woke up was not Yeosang, but a nurse that he recognized wearing the colors of the rebellion faction. He shot up, fists grabbing onto the sheets he had been slumbering on. They smelt faintly like daisies and sun dried tomatoes, the fantastical smell of home.

“Park Seonghwa,” began the healer, a shaky hand smoothing over the pristine white sheets covering his body, “I’m afraid I have bad news. While you have healed with great milestones, I couldn’t take away the scarring. It.. It will hurt until you heal your heart as well.”

A stone settled into his stomach. What did the nurse mean by healing his heart?

“What do you mean?” He whispered, his fingertips growing colder. Did something happen to his heart when he was stabbed? Was he forever paralyzed with no hope in returning? “W-Where is Prince Y-Yeosang, nurse?”

Where was Yeosang when he needed him?

The nurse coughed into her hand and turned away. The sun, reflected from the window, shone particularly harshly the metal name-plate stapled to her uniform. 

‘Hong Jangmee,’ it read. It meant red rose.

She fixated the good ( _scorching red flames that threatened to burn his chest wound alive; red, red, red-_ ) eye that wasn’t covered in a bandage on him, voice tender as she revealed what he never wanted to hear. “Prince Yeosang has been wedded as of yesterday morning to Prince Hongjoong of our faction. He was the one who stabbed you, Park Seonghwa.”

_Wedded..?_

Seonghwa struggled to swing his legs over the bed as a whimper tore out of his chest, an ugly cloud of black mist stuck at the end of his throat. “W-What do you mean he’s wedded? We, we were in love, that’s impossible-”

Her eyes glimmered, as if they were filled with unshed tears. Somehow, the red irises of hers seemed to be drowning in the same despair Seonghwa himself currently felt.

_Oh goodness, this was actually happening._

He didn’t know when the tears started to fall, but they never seemed to stop, no matter how hard he tried. By the time he came back to his senses, the nurse had left him a paperback copy of the manual for nursing his wounds and was showing him the ugly barcode tattoo that marred the skin of his neck. He looked into the mirror and for the first time smiled painfully back at his dull reflection.

Beside him, Jangmee murmured as she traced over her own scars. Her gaze was once again unfocused, as if she was lost in some kind of dream. 

“You fell in love with the devil. It happens to the best of us, Mr. Park.”

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

. _Sometimes, Seonghwa could still taste the bitter wine on the tip of his tongue, could see the way his lips curved into a satisfied smile, could feel the birds chirping before dawn when he snuck into the royal garden to see _him.._. _

_But it didn’t hurt as much anymore. Not when San smiled like a gleeful child when he dug out his newest jams and pastries, not when San complimented on his clothes even when it was muddy and torn, and certainly not when San blinked up at him innocently as he listened attentively to how Seonghwa liked to take care his flowers._

_He certainly wasn’t in love with San- he was way past the age and maturity to fiddle with such an innocent concept- but somehow he felt right when San was by his side._

_San felt like home._

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

San had a mask on instead of his usual straw hat today. He looked oddly sullen, a strange look on the normally cheerful baker. He didn’t talk about the dapper young man he had been chatting up recently, nor did he talk about his mother’s pastries.

When Seonghwa had approached him boldly about the subject, he was pushed away harshly. So instead, Seonghwa did what he did best- offer the boy some flowery scented tea and hoped that he calmed down on his own.

“What’s wrong, Sannie?” He pressed lightly, ignoring the way San growled under his breath as he inhaled his cup of honeyed marigold tea. Seonghwa had learned the hard way that the boy absolutely hated anything that had to do with bitterness- a pot was wasted that day as San spat out his precious tea- and since then prepared the natural sweetener in case the boy came around.

He was grateful that San was different and not.. like him. It still hurt when he fumbled around the kitchen and saw the golden goblet the prince had acquired for him many many years ago.

“Hyung..” San asked after an hour had passed, “Would you die for the one you loved?”

Momentarily stunned, Seonghwa accidentally knocked away his cup of scalding hot tea right onto his hand. Hissing, the gardener went straight to his sink to wash the wound with cold water, hoping that for once a minor wound would not leave a scar on him. 

San’s gaze was equally scalding- the type of gaze you would feel welded on your forehead even after hours had passed- as if he had asked a life and death question. The fact that San stared straight into his soul imprinted itself on his back like a hot wax stamp. 

He didn’t know how long he had stood under the icy cold water, his mouth suddenly dry like the desert, but his answer came out in a raspy tone as he stared back at San with an unreadable face.

“I suppose.. I suppose I would.”

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

_“Hyung, why do the best people die?” San had asked one afternoon as they sat under an ancient tree in his flower garden, watching the birds fly overhead._

_“Hmm… Come to think of it, Sannie- when you’re in a garden, which flowers would you pick?”_

_San’s voice was soft when he replied, his voice nothing but the hint of a painful whisper. Seonghwa had to brace himself and lean forward to catch the words falling from the tip of his tongue._

“.. The prettiest ones, hyung.”

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

San didn’t come by for a month after that fateful conversation. It soon grew into two, three months and then into half a year. 

Every day, Seonghwa dutifully prepared a plate of homemade brownies with the recipe San gave him a while back, experimenting with the seasonal flowers that never seemed to wilt in his garden. Every day, he faithfully waited for his baby boy, his San to return to the hut.. but by evening, when all of his oil lamps had stopped burning, there was still no sign of the boy. 

Of course he grew more and more worried as more time passed on, but there was nothing he could do other than wait at his hut for a miracle to happen. San was just a boy who cared too much and befriended him on a whim. 

He was nothing but the hollow body of a legendary fairytale.

So when he found all of his larkspurs plucked out of his garden with some strange tweezers the next morning, he cried. When he noticed the metal handles had been stained with bloody handprints, he screamed with all his might.

All he could do was wail in anguish and hope that _maybe, just maybe his Choi San was safe_.

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

_“What’s his name, Sannie? He sounds like a great person..”_

__

__

San’s smile grew. “His name is Jung Wooyoung! He told me that his family used to be nobles back in the day when the great Kang Yeosang was king, but they moved back here to settle down as tailors and gardeners. Hmm.. maybe you’re also related, since you plant flowers as well!”

Ignoring the ache in his chest with the reminder of his Yeosang, Seonghwa managed to smile back at San. “That’s great to hear Sannie. I hope he treats you well.”

_“He.. He does, Hwa. I love him.”_

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

Summer came and went, and so came forth the local Harvest Festival. 

Mrs Choi stood in front of her bakery without her son tagging along this time, trying to persuade the stragglers to purchase one of her famous wine chocolate eclairs. Seonghwa bought a cart full of the treats with the money he had saved up over the years, much to his own chagrin and Mrs Choi’s surprise. When he went to add an apple pie to his purchase, Mrs Choi shook her head and placed a hand on his outstretched hand, opening her mouth to speak softly. “Thank you, sir. It’s been hard without my son around to help me. How can I repay you?”

Seonghwa couldn’t help but shed a few tears himself as he clung helplessly to her hand, feeling oddly responsible for San’s disappearance. Last he had heard, a serial killer had been picking up young males around the ripe age of early twenties just to break their hearts and snap their necks for fun, just because they were rejected by a fine young lady.

The imagery of the bloodied gardening tool haunted his mind. Did Choi San meet the same fate? Did he fail the one he was supposed to protect? Was Choi San.. dead? 

_He still couldn’t believe that his Choi San was gone._

“You don’t need to,” he managed to say with a kind smile on his face. “He’ll come back around sometime, you know kids.. Young love, all that jazz. He’ll be back soon.” 

The look on Mrs Choi’s face made it clear that she didn’t believe him, but she let him go with a firm smile. She managed to sneak in some mango tarts into his cart without asking for him to pay for them as well.

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

_“Mr Park, this is Mapo-gu Hospital calling. We have a patient named Choi San looking for you, he said you were his.. boyfriend? He is fine but he sustained minor injuries to his arms and has no life threatening injuries. He has been linked to a serial killer that goes by Jung Wooyoung, who was on the loose in the area. The inspections have ended and we are calling to let you know that Choi San has been released from his ward, he is ready to go home..”_

═══°∴,*⋅✲══〖🌼〗══✲⋅*,∴°═══

Seonghwa couldn’t help but scrub the sponge down his back harshly, mindful of the injuries that were still healing. San's barcode tattoo, stamped on the left side of his neck, stood out starkly against his normal pale skin- but it all just made him much more beautiful. It was like his own, but with different numbers that blossomed in remembrance of his date of death. San was lucky he was brought back to life, just like how Seonghwa himself was. Deep down, Seonghwa was still angry and worried with how San had disappeared, how San had nearly slipped from his fingertips... but he buried down the anguish and sorrow threatened to burst out in any moment, kept it down in case San wasn’t in the mood to explain. There would be time for that later.

“Boyfriend, huh?”

His San, his Choi San smiled weakly back at him, bubbles foaming around him like a nicely made white dress virgin maidens would wear. “Shut up! That was the only thing I could think of that the hospital would have permitted you to take me home.. Uh, can this be my home too? Obviously, I’ll go back once I’m fully healed but I kinda just want to stay here with you, Seonghwa-” 

For the first time in decades, Seonghwa smiled freely.

“Yes, you can stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Most of the flowers mentioned in this piece are birth flowers! Yeosang's birth flower are roses, Seonghwa's are daisies and San's are larkspurs. I used [this image](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7e/7f/4e/7e7f4e8cf72430cb6759a7cf9ae88892.jpg) for reference. Kudos to Yang for coming up with the easter egg in the picture.
> 
> I would also like to clarify that although not explicitly said in the fic, both Sanhwa have died which is the original intent of the artist; hence why I decided to run along with the idea of them 'coming back to life' in their recovery.


End file.
